| R.E.M. – I Believe Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| @[realitysoldier:35525] but as a musician, Stipe knows both that practice makes perfect, and that perfect is a fault. The perfection must be achieved, and then broken, to create true beauty. He is not mocking the aphorisms but exploring, deconstructing, transforming and reclaiming them. | |
| R.E.M. – I Believe Lyrics | 5 years ago |
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@[darlomunday:35524] But Mahalia Jackson took it from the timeless Christian liturgy. I Believe = Credo in Church Latin, which refers to the Apostles Creed or Nicene Creed: I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth....” Clearly Stipe believed in something else, but I have no doubt he knew he knew he was speaking in an ancient tradition. I think the song, rather than pointing out contradiction, embraces and celebrates paradox, as in the practice makes perfect line, true in each part and more so as a whole in its paradoxical glory. I always heard the final clause as “in fault lies change.” Perfection, purity, is the concern of many religions, and Stipe elegantly deconstructs and reclaims the conception as an article of faith in his idiosyncratic, highly personal existential creed, celebrating dynamism, flow, indeterminacy, individuality itself, claimed and created personal purpose. With no disrespect to Christian believers, I profess the Stipe Creed. It electrified me the first time I heard it and still makes me tear up every time, forty years later. |
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| R.E.M. – I Believe Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| @[Quonset:35523] Rather, about finding it within yourself. | |
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